Illinois ought to make online fantasy sports gambling legal, tax the heck out of it and share in the windfall that millions of our fellow residents are cheerfully generating for the people operating these enterprises.

Last week, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan issued an opinion that fantasy sports contests offered by FanDuel and DraftKings "clearly constitute gambling" and are therefore illegal under Illinois law.

The two fantasy sports websites, which have been outlawed in other states, immediately denounced the decision, proclaiming their sites are games of skill, where participants pit their knowledge about sports against that of other fans. Forget the legal mumbo jumbo. We all know gambling when we see it and betting on the outcome of athletic competitions is certainly that, even if you're the one selecting the players on "your team."

The fact is that Illinois is in debt. It owes more than $110 billion to pension funds. There are $6 billion in unpaid bills from 2015 sitting in the state comptroller's office. The governor and state legislators can't agree on a budget, but they will eventually agree to some sort of tax increase that still won't come close to filling this state's massive financial hole.

Chicago has its own money problems, and Chicago Public Schools is scheduled to spend hundreds of millions of dollars it doesn't expect to have next year, and that's before the teacher's union agrees on a new contract.

I laughed out loud when I heard Mayor Rahm Emanuel respond to the most recent police shooting of an innocent civilian by saying he would look into getting law enforcement officers better training on how to deal with incidents involving people suffering from mental illness. The city has slashed funding for mental health clinics and the state suspended funding for a really good training program because it simply ran out of cash.

In the meantime, homeowners in Illinois are in open rebellion against property tax increases, the primary method of funding public education in this state, and the governor has promised hundreds of millions of dollars more for schools if he can ever get legislators to agree to his "Turnaround Agenda."

Millions of Illinois residents play on fantasy sports sites, and FanDuel claims Lisa Madigan is depriving all 13.5 million of her constituents of the joy.

You can't legislate morality. That lesson should have been learned during Prohibition, when millions of citizens of this country violated the law and bought alcoholic beverages that were outlawed, making organized crime figures some of the wealthiest men in the nation.

For decades, this country has been fighting a similar battle against narcotics, spending billions of dollars in the process, putting thousands of people in prison and wasting precious resources that could have been spent on health care, Social Security, roads, bridges and scientific research.

I don't know why so many Americans have so much money to waste on such counterproductive habits. Anyone capable of reading knows that middle-class Americans have less money to spend then they did decades ago, they have no job security, smaller pensions and taxes are crippling the economy. Maybe that's why they're turning to drugs, illegal and legal, to escape. Maybe that's why they're gambling, figuring that's their only chance at retirement, or living the American dream.

The companies argue that their contests are games of skill allowed by state law. They're...

It seems pretty obvious based on the evidence, the billions of dollars wagered on athletic competitions and the billions more spent on illegal drugs, that our society is sick, but we're going to ignore that for now because, well, that's just what we do.

What you can't ignore is the willingness of people to spend their money on fantasy sports sites.

People want to pit their knowledge about the NFL against that of other fans. There is allegedly some statistical basis for assuming that a person who does research can defeat another person who does less, thereby making money in head-to-head competitions, or just by bringing groups of friends together to form a league.

I could point out that a 62-yard run for a touchdown could be called back by a holding penalty. Or, as in the case of the Chicago Bears game Sunday, an intercepted pass that would have altered the outcome of a game, can be nullified by a face-mask call that seemed invisible. Key players go down to injury every weekend, kickers miss field goals, cornerbacks blow assignments resulting in touchdowns and wide receivers simply drop passes. NFL general managers and head coaches can't seem to figure out what's going on, but truck drivers, bank tellers, plumbers, electricians and college professors all figure they're smarter than them, or at least smarter than the guy working next to them who is a member of the same fantasy sports league.

It's the craziest thing I've ever seen. As nutty as paying hundreds of dollars for a ticket to a sporting event, $200 for a pair of athletic shoes or almost as much for an official team jersey.

But that's the country we live in, a place where star athletes make $20 million a year and people complain teachers are overpaid.

You can torment yourself wondering how we got to such a place, or, as most people have done, simply focus on other matters, like the Islamic State and immigration. Yeah, that's the problem.

As for me, I see people spending money they obviously do not need. I see a large hole in the state budget. And by placing a tax on fantasy sports gambling, a really stiff tax, we can solve some of our financial problems in Illinois and still let people enjoy themselves on DraftKings and FanDuel.

If you actually legalized sports gambling on the Internet, allowing people to bet on upcoming games, and legalized Internet poker, you could even make more money.

But the majority of Americans would say that is immoral. Gambling should not be encouraged, unless you are one of the millions of people participating in a fantasy sports league on FanDuel and DraftKings.

The logic defies explanation. We all know people who gamble. We all know people who bet on athletic competitions. Most of us know someone who makes regular trips to a casino, or one of those neighborhood video gaming cafes. Heck, just about every senior citizens organization has charter buses going to the casinos on a regular basis, or organizes trips to Las Vegas.

Gambling is widely accepted, even encouraged, and at the same time condemned as evil.

I say no matter what your perspective, you ought to be able to get behind the idea of taxing the activity. Onerous taxes on alcohol consumption and cigarette purchases have long been defended as society's way to discourage their use and abuse. The same should be done with fantasy sports gambling.

If you're the sort of person who opposes taxes, this is one you should be able to back. It's a voluntary tax. If you don't gamble, you don't pay it. If you choose to play in a fantasy league, you obviously have expendable income.

The debate should not be whether or not fantasy sports sites are illegal, but how to regulate them, tax them and make money, just like the NFL owners who have invested in some of these sites.

I am confident Illinois will get this wrong. Legislators will either legalize the games without requiring adequate tax compensation, or ban them. Given the amount of money lobbyists are likely to spend in Springfield, my bet would be on legalization without taxation.

I wish I could place a bet on that sort of thing, legally. I would wager on Illinois getting it wrong.

A version of this article appeared in print on December 29, 2015, in the News section of the Chicago Tribune with the headline "Legalize and then tax fantasy sports gambling" —
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